Cloud Sherpas lead climb into Google heavens

Cloud Sherpas – an Atlanta, Georgia–based outfit that aims to facilitate the use of Google's Apps suite of online business services – has added several new tools to its flagship application.

Known as SherpaTools, the application is designed to ease migration to Google Apps, but also to enhance the suite itself, providing additional tools for both administrators and end users. Most notably, SherpaTools can now be used in tandem with the free version of Google Apps. Previously, the application could only be used with the for-pay version of the Google suite, which offers a broader set of APIs than the free version.

Mark Wood, vice president of product management for Cloud Sherpas, tells us that SherpaTools previously ran only on the Google Apps Business Edition due to the API limitations. Now, although the application will work with the free version, the API limitations still ensure that only about 60 to 65 per cent of the application's tools can be used.

The latest incarnation of SherpaTools also gives businesses more control over administrator rights. Using a new "constituencies" setup, you can grant an administrator the right to oversee only a particular portion of your organization. And you can now instantly purchase additional Google Apps seats through SherpaTools.

Cloud Sherpas is a Google Apps reseller, and previously, if you had purchased your Google Apps licenses through Cloud Sherpas, you had to submit additional paperwork with the company to purchase seats for additional users.

SherpaTools was among the original 50 applications in Google's Apps Marketplace. It too is available in free and for-pay versions. The company says the application now serves over 300,000 users across more than 16,000 domains. ®